The word Hindu in American English

Question

I, as an Indian, am often surprised when the Americans use the word Hindu, when they actually mean

1. The country of India
2. The Indian subcontinent
3. The Hindi language (possibly)

whereas it should only refer to the Hindu religion, or Hinduism.

For example, there is the Hindu-German conspiracy of 1915. While most of the Indian conspirators may have been Hindu, it does not appear to have been religiously motivated.

An American cousin of mine wanted a 'Hindu Barbie' in a sari. It sounded inaccurate, at least to my years. Occasionally, I have heard an Indian accent being referred to as a 'Hindu accent'. To my ear, this sounds as ridiculous as an accent being referred to as, say, a Catholic accent, a Baptist accent, or a Jewish accent.

The British do not usually do this, but I did see an old (1930s) film where the actor claimed that a nonsense word was 'Hindu' for welcome.

What is the reason for this usage? I did hear one possible explanation. A friend of mine visiting South America took exception to this usage. Upon enquiring, he was told that the word 'Hindu' refers to 'Indian Indians', while 'Indian' refers to native South Americans.

Was this the case in the USA as well?

How common is this usage? Is it universal, or only among the poorly educated? Why don't people say South Asian, or Indian, or the subcontinent, depending on the context?

To be fair to the Americans, the words and phrases Hindu, Hinduism, India, Indus, Sindh, Sindhu, Hindi, Hindostan, Hindu Kush, etc all have the same origin.

However, non-Hindu South Asians, including Indians, and even some secular Hindus may be offended by such usage.

Answer 1

In a comment, HotLicks wrote:

Just to make sure it's clear: In North America the term "Indian", without any qualifier, was pretty much universally used to refer to "Native Americans" and their related languages, customs, and territories from 1492 until 1950, at which time the transition to "American Indian" and then "Native American" slowly began. That transition is far from complete, and if you say "Indian" in the US, without some contextual clues, your listener is almost certain to be unsure which culture you are referencing.

Let me add that for people who have Native Americans living among them, or who have a reservation close by, the word Indian, absent other indicators, will naturally be taken to mean the people whom they’re close to in their common experience of everyday life.

The British “do not do this” for several reasons. First, they have a long association with India; America does not. Second, America has a long association with “Cowboys and Indians”; Britain does not.

Here from Politico is the normal context of the word Indian in these American lands:

“It’s very troublesome,” said Caitrin McCarron Shuy of the National Indian Health Board, noting that Native Americans suffer from the nation’s highest drug overdose death rates, among other health concerns. “There’s high unemployment in Indian country, and it's going to create a barrier to accessing necessary Medicaid services.”

Native Americans’ unemployment rate of 12 percent in 2016 was nearly three times the U.S. average, partly because jobs are scarce on reservations. Low federal spending on the Indian Health Service has also left tribes dependent on Medicaid to fill coverage gaps.

“Without supplemental Medicaid resources, the Indian health system will not survive,” W. Ron Allen — a tribal leader who chairs CMS’ Tribal Technical Advisory Group — warned Verma in a Feb. 14 letter.

As you see, Indian already means something here. You wouldn’t want people to get confused.

I know you will find this hard to believe or perhaps sympathize with, and that it will unfairly make you think less of us, but most Americans know very little about Asia let alone India, except that it is a huge and inconceivably distant place.

They have no contact with it and so have no need for nuanced terms. They often cannot tell you what “South Asian” even means in the sense that you are using it, and plenty still say “Oriental” for what you might use East Asian or Southeast Asian for. Remember they also are unlikely to know the difference between Sikh and Muslim and Hindu.

India simply isn’t a place that we have historically had much reason to think about. If you asked someone from Yuma or Reno whether they thought Calcutta or Ceylon were closer to eight or ten thousand miles away, number one they would have no idea, and number two, they wouldn’t blanch at those names the way you just have. :)

When there’s already a particular word for something, it’s only natural to pick a different word for something that’s completely different. I’m not saying this is “right”; it’s just what happens. I would never suggest that someone use “a Hindu” to mean a person from any of the countries of the Indian Subcontinent, nor would I do so myself. The question only asked for why people might do so, or might have done so in the past, so that’s what I’ve tried to explain.

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Related

• What would you call a person from India?
• Usage of “East Indian” to distinguish from “Native American”
• Short, Politically Correct word for Native Americans

Answer 2

A brief etymological note:

You already mentioned the common origin of several words. I don't know about inside of India, but outside, the word has referred to a geographical region for a long time.

Etymonline has it that hindu in English dates from around the

1660s, from Persian Hindu (adjective and noun) "Indian," from Hind "India," from Sanskrit sindhu "river," meaning here the Indus; hence "region of the Indus," the sense then gradually was extended by invading peoples to encompass all northern India. "Properly, one of the native race in India descended from the Aryan conquerors. ... More loosely, the name includes also the non-Aryan inhabitants of India" [Century Dictionary, 1902]. As an adjective from 1690s. The Hindu Kush mountain range is said to mean literally "Indian killer," and was said to have been the name given by the Persians to a pass where their Indian slaves had perished in winter, but this likely is folk etymology.

And a (tangential) note of personal experience:

The phenomenon is not only found in American English: I've worked in a South Chilean hardware store (where we speak American Spanish) for the last five years, and have paid close attention to the origins of the ironmongery there. In Chile, importers have found that India has good stuff cheap, possibly due to the relaxed worker protection laws there. I have found that some of the best quality/price ratios in the "quincallería" (hinges and latches) sections of hardware import/distributors here have many Indian products, as well as leather products (gloves, work aprons and welder protection clothing). In the catalogues, these are almost invariably referred to as being "indú" in origin.

As a native North American, when I first heard this usage, I was also confused, having had the impression that "Hindu" referred to a religion, as other commenters on OP have also said; and I could not understand why South Americans should want religious work-clothing, nor why the religious Hindus themselves should be making leather objects in the first place. However, from what I have been able to ascertain (by a sort of linguistic osmosis mostly), the word "Hindú" in these catalogues (and in casual speech) refers exclusively to a geographical region, leading me to believe that the Persians lent their usage to Western Europe and from there to the Americas.

Conclusion

You said:

...whereas it should only refer to the Hindu religion, or Hinduism.

I generally make an effort to be sensitive to offenses that others may take at the words I use, especially with regards to national origins. But in my town there are no Indians, and I don't even know any in the next town, although there may be some. And the usage of "Hindu" here is not meant to be offensive at all; it is simply the name given to anything that comes from India in general. I guess that the Persians (and other invading peoples) did not particularly care whether they were offensive or not, and the rest of the world simply followed suit.

So "should only refer to..." seems a bit strong; unless the usage actually is offensive, I will probably keep using it in America, because of its established (by use) meaning. And I hope that someone who could take offense would also write an answer here, explaining their side.

Answer 3

This phenomenon is neither recent nor strictly "American." The "Americans" got it from the British, back when a more common Anglicized spelling was "Hindoo."

For example:

• The 1792 Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London (vol. 82) contains an article by Henry Cavendish, Esq., titled "On the Civil Year of the Hindoos, and its Divisions ; with an Account of three Hindoo Almanacs belonging to Charles Wilkins, Esq."
• Printed in London in 1794 is Specimens Of Hindoo Literature: Consisting of Translations, from the Tamoul Language, of Some Hindoo Works of Morality and Imagination, with Explanatory Notes: To Which Are Prefixed Introductory Remarks on the Mythology, Literature, etc. of the Hindoos. by N. E. Kindersley, Esq. of the Honourable East India Company's Civil Service on Their Madras Establishment.
• Printed in London in 1796 is Eliza Hamilton's Translations of the Letters of a Hindoo Rajah...
• London, 1817: Colonel Mark Wilks' Historical Sketches of the South of India, in an Attempt to Trace the History of Mysoor; from the Origin of the Hindoo Government of That State, to the Extinction of the Mahommedan Dynasty in 1799.

This spelling was used up to the mid-20th century:

• London, 1932: J. R. Ackerley's Hindoo Holiday: An Indian Journal

It also appeared in the US:

• Philadelphia, 1868: M. Frere's Old Deccan Days, or Hindoo Fairy Legends

In all of these cases, the word is used to indicate something related to or originating from India, regardless of language or religion.